11/25/13 - Jim Jachetta

The merger has been great. The companies were both staffed with people who really knew their stuff. The transition was exciting. For me it was like I was skiing with the instructors at Mammoth one day, then all of the sudden, I was skiing with the instructors at Jackson Hole the next. All good.

11/25/13 - Jim Jachetta

11/25/13 - Suzie Lopez

One of the things I remember the most about the ProLogis – Catellus mergers were the code names used by all negotiating parties before the announcement was made to the public. In order to talk about the two companies coming together the names Palm Tree and Cactus were used. Palm Tree was to identify ProLogis and Cactus was used for Catellus. I had never experienced a merger of this size so I was fascinated to hear the importance of the private talks in which took place that not even the employees were told about.
An additional exciting experience I had was when Catellus Headquarter in San Francisco closed and the main line had my name as a point of contact. I was one of five contacts in the entire company and I was not made aware of it. This was just one of those minor details that got missed when there was so much going on. In the first week my phone would not stop ringing. I began to get concerned because everyone else in my department was not getting any calls. At one point I asked an investor who called me to find out how it was that he had gotten my name and phone number. He explained the that the old Catellus Headquarters phone line directed all accounting questions to me. I then called the number to hear it for myself I was astonished to think they had that much faith in me. I then had to be able to direct all Accounting questions to the right party. At the time I was the administrative assistant to the Senior Vice President of Property and Fund Accounting so it made sense. This didn’t much matter because it seemed I was screening all types of calls. I had to quickly obtain their old company phone list and somewhat organizational chart so I can connect who replaced who and who was no longer with the company. All that research helped me network with the people within in the company and I was able to become a good source of knowing who to contact who and for what.